And. we. have. lift off!

Aquarella at Porto Heli

The small town of Porto Heli lies in one corner of a large and almost landlocked bay.

It's an ideal spot to anchor or take a mooring en route to the islands of the Saronic gulf.

After using a few days here for boat maintenance and painting a watercolour while in calm waters, I decided it was time to try a bit of fun.

I let go of the mooring I had hired and motored across the bay near a secluded beach where I could try out my latest acquisition: a drone. 

After setting the anchor at a depth of 3 meters I put my new drone into a sail bag, loaded it in the dinghy and went ashore. I chose a small beach between some bushes where I could secretly launch the drone safely without being seen. I had read that dignitaries such as President Putin, Ex King Constantine and Sean Connery have property right here so I considered the danger of my drone being shot down by security guards.

I had practised using it before in my garden in Sweden. The first time it landed in the flower bed and beheaded of all my tulips, but after a few trial runs I felt I had mastered the noble art of drone manoeuvring. I still didn't feel confident enough to launch it from the boat though as the landing space is too small and the boat moves even at anchor.

Hiding behind a bush to send the drone up.

 After calibrating the drone's GPS by walking with it around in circles, I started the camera and powered it up. And up it went! It was my idea to fly it over the boat to get some lovely footage from the air of Aquarella in the sunset. However I was apprehensive about taking it over the water in case I lost control. I just took it up high enough to get an overall view of the bay. Using the remote to turn it around I did actually loose control in that it went into a crazy spin. I got it down OK though without crashing and with a great relief switched the dam thing off. Just as I did that,  I heard a voice behind me saying "Kali Spera!" ( good evening)  

I nearly wet my pants! The old Greek gentleman looked at me as if I was mad. 

I probably am.

PS. The footage didn't turn out so good because a wire to the gimbal, which should have held the camera horizontal, had loosened. But I'm sure I'll get it to work next time.

Still image from a very dizzy Gopro 

Rome wasn't built in a day.

to be continued...